Epilogue

9 months later—New Year's Eve—Human World

"Come on dear, push!"

The words meant little to the human girlt aht was in the grips of labor. Her mind screamed for the demon that should have been there to welcome the child into the world. But instead of calling out Kuronue's name as her heart did, Hiromi screamed and pushed the child from her womb.

She could have been doing this with Audra, Night, and the other female demon's that had taken care of her during her stay with the demons. Yoko had offered her an indefinite stay at the castle. Hiromi had taken him up on the offer for the first month, but Kuronue was everywhere that she looked. She saw him in everything she did too. So Hiromi had chosen to return home to human world.

She had weaved a tale for her frantic mother of having run to a nearby town to get away from the marriage. On her way there she was taken by bandits and forced to serve them. She alluded to the use of her body against her will but did not go into detail until she began to visibly show her pregnancy. By this time it was too late to abort the child.

A scream broke through her remembrance—the only thing that kept her from passing out in pain. The scream had not come from her own lips either. She opened her eyes that were tired and looked down between her legs to see if something bad had happened. Lying there, the child bawled softly as its first breathe was taken. It hadn't been it that had made that ear piercing scream either.

Hiromi saw the midwives and her mother draw back from her and the child. She knew why they did it though. On the back of the child, small bat wings fluttered. She was a half-demon.

Despite the bone weary tiredness that plagued her form the hours of labor she had endured, Hiromi reached down and picked the little girl up. Cradling it to her breast as she let if feed, she looked up and snarled like a mother bear when her mother tried to take the little beauty away from her.

"Hiromi, give me that demon spawn this instant. It is going into the first spring I see so it will not destroy our family!" the older woman demanded. She was used to her daughter doing what she told her when she told it and did not like being refused.

Hiromi simply looked up at her mother with the gaze of a mother no longer cowed by others that thought they knew better than she. She found it almost amusing that this woman was trying to intimidate her into letting her child be killed—letting Kuronue's child be drowned. Kuronue had been more intimidating on his nice day then this woman who was trying to kill her only reminder of Kuronue.

"You land a hand on this child and I will eat your hand." Hiromi threatened.

Her mother was about to argue, but paused and stared up at the door that was behind Hiromi as it slid open. She muttered a quick prayer and backed away from the young human and half-demon girl. Hiromi did not let her gaze move from her mother's face. Her spirit energy that had gone almost completely silent after her return to the human world sung as the six demonic energies entered the room. She knew all of them very well by this point.

The familiar shape of a black spider crawled to sit on her left, glaring at the humans in the room. A silver fox with golden eyes came to sit on the woman's other side. The noise of demons unsheathing swords was distinct to the women in the room as there was complete and utter silence in the birthing room.

Audra came into view and knelt in front of the newly made mother. With quick and practiced hands, she cut the umbilical cord and finished things off 'down there'. She finished the job in silence though she did smile up at Hiromi, a knowing glint in her eyes. The humans pulled away from Hiromi who was so calmly dealing with demons and those demons being in a very defensive mood.

Yoko stepped forward in his fox form, gold eyes sparling. Human words came from his mouth when he opened it.

"Either you will accept the child into the household, or we will take lady Hiromi of the Bats with us and you will never see your daughter or your granddaughter again. She will live with us where she will be treated like a queen—not some woman that was taken advantage of by one of us." He didn't have to explain that the 'us' was demons.

"You can take that demon whore!" Hiromi's mother said, cowering in the corner, as far from the demons as she could possibly get. No sooner had those words left her lips, the group was gone—woman, daughter, and demons. The only thing that remained to remind the household that a woman had just given birth was the dirty birthing clothes on the ground where Hiromi had lain.

Present Day Japan. Home town of Hiromi of the Bat's, now a small town on the outskirts of a forest, two hours out from Tokyo.

"Mama, why are we here?" came the voice of a young half demon girl. She was carrying a bag on her back as they flew through the air over the town below, circling it. Their bat wings were glinting in the sunlight as they flapped to keep themselves aloft. Her mother was obviously looking for something.

The older of the two, a young looking woman of 206 years, looked at the town, her eyes searching for the one house that would be their new home. Her black-blue eyes were a mix from her father and mother. When she looked at her own daughter though, she saw an exact replica of her mother from a picture she had seen that her father, Kuronue of the Bats as he was called, had commissioned as a mating gift for her mother, Hiromi of the Bats. In fact, though Hika didn't know it, she was the reincarnation of her grandmother Hiromi.

"This is where I was born, and our new home since Yoko has been turned into a human and left the thieving group." Tylia told her daughter before dropping to the ground near an old mansion. Hika dropped next to her and looked around like a bored teenager looking a very uninteresting piece of land.

"Why couldn't we have stayed in demon world though? We'll have to bind our wings to fit in here." Hika said with a pout. She was very unwilling to admit her curiosity of Human world. Night, an old demon friend of her mothers and grandmothers, had told her stories of the day Tylia had been born that had both stunned and intrigued the young half-demon.

"Because there is someone here we must re-awaken. Lord Yoko said he'd sensed him here." Tylia instructed as she pushed open the doorway into the old style Japanese home. It had been abandoned after her mother had been spirited away by Yoko and the others. Despite this, the place was spotless and the reason for this popped up in front of Tylia to give her a hug.

"You two are finally here! Look at this place. So much better than in Hiromi's day, I'll tell you!" cried Night as she bounced first from hugging Tylia to giving Hika a hug as well.

"Let the fun begin," said Takji, who had exited the shadows to smile at them impishly. "I'm sure Lord Kuronue will love to make our acquaintance again."

Note from Author; Well my ducklings. This is the end. At least for this part of the story. I even threw in a little teaser for the next story, which has unanimously been decided to be A Human's Bat Rose. Please keep your eyes peeled for this. if I'm any good at my job, I will have the first chapter up by Friday, HOWEVER. This upcoming weekend is my brothers birthday so Imay not be able to post the first chapter until after the 22nd. :3 Please, I hope you had fun reading this. Love ALL my readers,
ROSEY